Bra-Vo!

The other morning, I woke with a start at 5am to find Genghis Cat creeping along the bedhead in stealth-stalking mode, no doubt planning to smother me in my sleep by placing that well-groomed anus of his over my nostrils.

Waking with a start was somewhat complicated by the fact that Tiddles McGee was holding both of my ears in his sleep, a quirky little habit he’s formed which often makes me feel like a short-wave radio he’s trying to tune.

Of course, I also had the puppy sleeping, pressed hard against my vital organs. The poor thing must have been truly exhausted after a long hard night of chewing: that night’s victims (as I went on to discover) included a hardcover book, the Pixie’s “favouritest” box, and Mr Justice’s bicycle seat.

A lesser person might have snapped making such discoveries after a bad night’s sleep less than two weeks before Christmas.

But not I.

You see, I had me a secret weapon. I had me a new bra to wear. And not just a new bra, but a new well-fitting bra.

For months, since our last disastrous attempt at bra shopping, my dear friend KT has been hassling me about driving me to this corsetiere or that and I’ve been all “Yeah, yeah. Whatevs.” like she was my mother reminding me to tidy my room or my husband hassling me for sex. I mean, she must have been checking out my breasts, like, All. The. Time and tracking their slow, sad progression towards the ground. Ah, gravity. You are a bitch.

And then finally, just the other day, I suddenly relented. Christmas had worn me down. I found myself with so much to do that dumping it all and going bra shopping instead seemed like a blessed relief.

And so it came to pass that in a middle of an empty lingerie factory outlet, with ne’er a Christmas decoration in sight, that I met my bra. Yes, I met “The One”.

“OH. MY. GOD.” I said to KT. “This bra makes my breasts look…. magnificent.”

And before I knew it, I was buying two of the things. I was spending $114 of our precious pre-Christmas budget not on stocking fillers or Christmas pantry items or utility bills, but on french lingerie. I started to get that sick I’ve-just-spent-money-we-don’t-really-have feeling but then I remembered the $100 wetsuit my husband had purchased just the week before with the thought of maybe just maybe taking up snorkeling in all that spare time he has and I realised I might just get a little more wear out of the bras…

So while I may be facing Christmas stressed-out-as-all-fuck, at least I now feel like I can take it all on. I feel prepared. I feel supported in all the right places. I have me that New Bra Feeling.

Moreover, I’m thinking of wearing one of the bras over my head while I sleep to protect my ears from Tiddles. And that other bra can be used an almighty slingshot to deter the fucking pets from their next course of wanton destruction.

Christmas? Bring. It.

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Cats And Dogs

It was one of those idyllic afternoons, when the hot day had surrendered to a cool change and we were all sitting in the backyard, basking in the sun and the breeze. The two younger kids were jumping on the trampoline, Mr Justice was reading aloud from a book, I was sipping from a flute of ice-cold champagne and Roxy the puppy was sniffing at my toes.

And then I saw him, standing at the back door, glowering at us through the fly screen, his heart hardened with hatred by what he saw before him.

No, not my husband – he was at work.

It was the cat.

The fricking-fucking cat.

I’ve made no secret of my feelings about Genghis Cat on this blog and in public. I’ve shocked many a person by referring to him as a “complete arsehole” in casual conversation. Even my husband has been known to tell our guests “Genghis? Oh, Genghis is a cock.”.

But at the end of the day, he’s *OUR* complete-arsehole-slash-cock and we feed him and love him as best as you can love something that bites you as quick as he’ll look at you. And I must concede that the arrival of a puppy would’ve upset even a cat like Fluffy Fluffkins of Fluffville Manor.

It doesn’t help that Roxy is prone to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” around Genghis. She dances and prances and yelps all around him while Genghis stands as still as a rock. A murderous-looking rock.

It also doesn’t help that Genghis had turned our backyard into the Killing Fields in the weeks leading up to the puppy’s arrival with many a grizzly discovery made when we were setting up for my 40th birthday party.

And it certainly doesn’t help that my husband, who having breezily said “Genghis will just have to deal with it!” before bringing Roxy home, suddenly announced a day after Roxy joined us with extreme gravity: “I think Genghis is capable of killing our puppy!”

He had obviously finally remembered the guinea pig. Lest we forget the guinea pig.

Still, we’ve all been working hard to broker some kind of peace deal between the two.  And slowly, ever so slowly,  progress is being made.

One week on, they can be in the same room without us all being on high alert (in the case of the kids, “high alert” means putting their hands over their ears, shutting their eyes and shouting every time Genghis walked in the room). Indeed, this morning, Tiddles, Roxy and Genghis all shared my bed at five-fucking-thirty-AM. Everyone was happy, except me. Because it was five-fucking-thirty-AM.

Yes, Genghis seems to be growing tolerant. For one thing, he’s recognised the fact that Roxy provides him with a whole new avenue of food. Turns out he loves puppy food. Of course he loves puppy food. It shits all over cat food. Just as burnt popcorn scraps, squashed peanut butter toast and congealed milk shits all over cat food. Stupid cat food.

I also suspect Genghis’ PR people have had a few words to him about his image. Suddenly, he’s trying to climb up on our laps and letting us pat him for more than a second before going for the jugular. But it’s a bit like Darth Vader handing out balloons or Heath Ledger’s ‘The Joker’ doing face painting at the local primary school fete – the menace is still there.

You see, I fear he’s playing a longer game than any of us are expecting. When we’ve all long since been lulled into a false sense of security, he’ll whip out a rocket launcher fashioned from the bones of dead birds, rodents and guinea pigs and blast the dog to kingdom come.

Arsehole.

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An Open Letter To My Cat

Attention: Genghis Cat, Feline Overlord of [address omitted]

Dear Cat,

I am writing to remind you that, according to the pet registry at the local council, I am listed as your owner. Not the other way around.

Admittedly, however, I mustn’t be much of an owner. I mean, I’ve never felt the need to put a picture of you up as my facebook profile pic or get you to wear a Santa Hat on our Christmas cards or have your name tattooed on my arse. Also, I’ve certainly never felt the way cat food manufacturers obviously think I should feel – most of the cats featured on their packaging are giving me their best “Come Hither” eyes and others seem positively post-coital. Is this really how cat owners feel about their pets? If so, I’m sorry. I just don’t see you That Way. For one thing, whenever I try to pat you, you just bite me. Perhaps that’s your way of giving me some lovin’ but I can tell you now, Cat: I’ve no interest in becoming your S&M bitch-slave. It just ain’t my scene.

Anyway, now that I’ve reestablished the fact that I’m your owner, I would like to remind you of a few house rules:

Greetings
Please do not greet me at the door with an accusatory whine, as if continuing a previous argument right at the point where we left off (no doubt about the fact that I “never” feed you). In return, I will cease regarding you warily with a “Helllooooo, Genghis”, like I’m Jerry Seinfeld greeting his nemesis Newman.

Disposal of body parts
I may be wrong here but I think most serial killers attempt to tidy up after themselves a bit. Whilst it can be said that nothing heightens the hanging-out-the-washing experience more than standing barefoot on a mouse head, I’d prefer it if you could either eat your prey in its entireity or use one of the garbage receptacles provided.

Land rights
You have no legal claim over the spot in front of the heater. You therefore do not reserve the right to stalk, pounce upon, scratch or bite anybody standing in that spot, especially if they have just been outside in the cold, cleaning up bird entrails from the trampoline. My husband would also like it to be known that when he sits naked in front of the heater in the mornings (for reasons known only to himself), those things hanging down between his legs are not your sworn enemy.

Meal Times
When I refuse to feed you outside of designated feeding times, please do not sit right in front of me and proceed to elaborately groom your arsehole in protest. And, for the record, other cats the size of small ponies subsist on one cup of dry cat food a day without complaint. You receive the same PLUS two sachets of ‘wet food’, which costs more per gram than most fancy-pants French cheeses, and yet you never quit your bitchin’. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM? If I served all your meals to you dressed in a gimp suit made entirely rubber and let you bite the crap out of me, would that make you satisfied? Would it? WOULD IT? Well, it ain’t gonna happen, Cat. It ain’t gonna happen.

Sheesh.

Your loving owner,

The NDM

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‘Mother’s Day’ – Episode One

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The So-Called “Benefits” of Pet Ownership

Here’s my confession: the joys and benefits of Pet Ownership are somewhat eluding me right now.

Let’s put it this way: if you were to get all the Happy Pet Owners of Australia and gather them together in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, I would not come along to your little pet-lovin’ shindig. So don’t bother inviting me, okay? Look, don’t even talk to me about it. Sheesh. 

And before you judge me too harshly, let’s just say that Genghis Cat (resident pet) represents just another member of this household who:

a) follows me around the house, hassling me to give him food;

b) turns his nose up at whatever food I give him;

c) wants to sleep in my bed;

d) wakes me up by crying loudly when I won’t let him sleep in my bed; and when I do let him sleep in my bed…

e) keeps me awake by biting my toes (admittedly the kids do it by jabbing my kidneys with those pointy toes of theirs)

f) unexpectedly shits, pisses and vomits in equally unexpected places around the house; and 

g) gives me worms. 

To add insult to injury, the cat makes a point of sitting right in front of me and licking his anus for, like, 20 minutes while I’m trying to eat my chocolate brownie and then leaping over and running his tongue across said brownie the minute I leave it unattended. At least the kids don’t do that – if only because it’s physically impossible for them to lick their anuses. 

Experts say: pets make good friends.

I say: even my worst enemies haven’t thrown up on my bed.  

Experts say: pet ownership has many health benefits.

I say: as long as I don’t eat that brownie. 

Experts say: pets are good for stress-relief.

I say: as long as they don’t create more stress than they relieve. But then again, I sure feel much better after shouting “STUPID CAT!” at the cat. And it certainly feels way more comfortable than shouting “STUPID KIDS!” at the kids. Plus I can lock the cat outside when he’s really pissing me off. Or I can even lock him outside when the kids are really pissing me off. I mean, better the cat, right?

Shit, no wonder he’s so unreasonably angry. And I can’t even blame the cat for that one. Which makes me unreasonably angry. 

Stupid cat. 

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Spring Cleaning The Pensieve (In The Dead Of Winter)

I have long since felt that there is a definite procedure to be followed when it comes to the preparation and consumption of toast. 

Of the standard serve of two slices, one slice should be designated as the “main meal” (e.g. vegemite, peanut butter) and the other slice should be the “dessert”(e.g. honey, jam, nutella). Each slice should be cut in half and the resulting units eaten in this order: main meal, dessert, main meal, dessert. It is imperative to end with a dessert slice, otherwise more toast needs to be made to “even things up”. It’s the law.

When I found myself thinking about this out loud on twitter, my friend SR piped up with “OMG, I’m the same. That’s an inner conversation I never thought I’d see written down.”

Such is the power of the internet. Doesn’t matter how strange your thoughts are or what devilish activities you’re into, chances are that somebody somewhere has blogged about it or tweeted about it or created an online support group for it. I personally like to think that by airing my stranger thoughts in public, I’m giving back to the online community, rather than making the internet a more dangerous place to tread. 

In any case, it’s no secret that I tend to treat my blog a bit like Dumbledore’s “Pensieve” – somewhere to pour’n’store my thoughts and memories. (And yes, that’s a Harry Potter reference. So sue me.) But even Pensieves must need the occasional spring cleaning, right? My guess is that there must be some kind of limit to the amount of memories you upload to the thing. Surely. 

ANYWAY, turns out I recently looked into the 43 unpublished posts in my wordpress account in the hope of harvesting one of them. Instead, I found that they had been languishing away in the drafts folder for a a very good reason: they were completely unpublishable. I even had three posts with the titles “Genghis The Menace”, “Stupid Council” and “Stupid Stupid” with no body text to them whatsoever. Really valuable stuff…

But I feel I can’t just throw all of those thoughts away, just like that. Surely, it is of the utmost importance that they be posted so that some poor soul will one day find them here and feel heartened that they are not alone in the world in thinking such incredibly lame stuff.  

So here are a few of them – or at least the essence of them – thrown to the internet like so many bread crumbs:

• Hell is… someone loudly chewing gum in my ear.
• There’s something very nice about clean crisp sheets when you are exhausted.
• Not to come over all “Princess and The Pea” or anything, but the feeling of crumbs and sand in the bed against my skin really hurts me.
• It’s no great surprise my bed is full of crumbs and sand considering how little time I spend cleaning my house. 
• What on earth tells the petrol pump when the tank is full and is it possible to get my husband fitted with one for beer? 
• I was 21 before I realised that thunder isn’t caused by “clouds rubbing together”. 
• Only a man could say “Better in than out” to a heavily pregnant woman.
• Mr Justice once told me “I laughed to the backside of my face”.
• People with children at weddings are a little like smokers. They end up hanging around the back together, exchanging sheepish looks as they try to keep their children from screaming or shouting exhuberantly during the “important bits”. 
• Genghis Cat is a menace.
• Stupid Council.
• Stupid Stupid.
• I have ugly feet.

And I’m spent. 

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A Mynah Affair

I’ve long since thought that Easter Saturday was a bit of a non-event, sitting between Two Giants of the Christian Calendar as it does. Nobody died, nobody rose again – it was just a pause in the parable. My friend, The Amateur Surgeon, pointed out that Easter Saturday might have been just a little bit exciting because Jesus would have been on his tour of hell on that day. But that was all behind-the-scenes stuff as far as the Bible is concerned – or at least it never appears in those Made-For-TV depictions of The Passion.  And whenever I think of “behind the scenes” I can’t help but think of Richard Wilkins doing backstage interviews at something like the Logies Awards. Which I guess is pretty close to hell in my books. 

In any case, with that concept of a “tour of hell” in mind, let me describe to you some our own Easter Saturday antics last weekend. 

It started off innocently enough. The children went outside to play in the sunshine but quickly ran back inside to say that Genghis Cat had a bird in his mouth. The bird – a fledgling Indian Mynah bird – was still alive and my husband bravely rescued it – quite literally – from the Jaws of Death. The bird was in shock but appeared otherwise unharmed, so my husband decided we should let it convalesce with us for a few weeks before releasing it back into the wild – well, the wilds of suburbia, that is. And boy are things wild ’round these parts. 

However, we needed a cage to keep him in (and keep Genghis out).

Now a normal person might have just bought a cheap one, but not my husband. No, he decided he should make one instead, with a view to “future bird-keeping”. 

And so he compulsorily acquired the wardrobe from the kids’ room for his project, leaving its contents on the floor.

Which meant we had to move the shelves from the laundry to the bedroom, thus dislocating the contents of those shelves.

Which led to us reassigning the book shelves in the kids room to the laundry.

Which meant we needed to move the shelves in the loungeroom to the kids’ room to hold the books and… 

Following all this, are you? Well, let’s just put it this way: imagine our house was a big drawer and we turned it upside down and emptied its entire contents onto the floor and then kicked them around a lot. With me now? 

My husband, bless his odd-socks, went onto put in at least five hours of hard labour building an aviary, complete with removable trays.

And, somewhat predictably, “Harry the Mynah Bird” went on and died sometime in the night. 

And so we woke up on Easter Sunday, with a dead bird in our hallway – which, contrary to the spirit of Easter, did not Rise Again – and the house looking like the insides of a snowdome while it’s being shaken and with an Unavoidable Date with Chocolate at hand. Which meant that, as we were trying to tidy up, the kids were just running around high on the Brown Stuff creating twice the mess. 

The moral of the story? I mean, there must be a moral. It was Easter, after all! 

Well, my friend KC said that Indian Mynah birds are considered vermin in most parts of Australia where they pose a real and ongoing threat to native bird species. So she’s now touting Genghis Cat as a Bona Fide Hero, which is a strange turn of events since both her husband and her son are violently allergic to him and his presence in our household has somewhat curtailed our friendship. So I guess, as far as Genghis is concerned, miracles really do happen. And as far as we’re concerned, it’s less miracles and just messes. But that’s really nothing new.

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